then it must be filled up from our ranks only; or else in the earlier times the preceding magistrate had the right of not accepting any votes (_nomina non accipere_) in favour of those who from different reasons were to be rejected; or again, if six military tribunes were elected, the curies afterwards gave the _imperium_ to the patricians only, and denied it to the plebeians. Yet it is incomprehensible in this last case how the plebeians could have allowed it. Unfortunately Dionysius fails us here, who, though he did not himself understand these relations, nevertheless faithfully recorded the facts as he found them: if we had him, the whole of this period would undoubtedly be clearer to us. After the last change, when six military tribunes always occur, we several times find the plebeians in a majority among them; and it is evident that it was then a settled rule that the number of six should always be full, and that without any further distinction between the two orders. This looks very much as if in the change the election had been transferred from the centuries to the tribes. It now depended only upon the honesty of the president whether he received the votes or not. That policy by which Italy became great in the fifteenth and sixteenth centuries, that wretched ideal of states-craft, is now displayed in the Roman history, especially in the division in the college of tribunes. This is one of the causes, which for some time checked the progress of Rome. Times in which successful wars are carried on, as was now the case with Rome until the Gallic invasion, are exceedingly apt to lead subjects to acquiesce in what they otherwise would never have borne with. The name of the state was surrounded with a halo of glory; a great deal of booty was gained, and also many conquests; plebeians as well as patricians felt comfortable; and although the power was not much liked, matters were yet allowed to go on as they were. Rome recovered from the decline into which she had fallen since the _Regifugium_. Moreover the intermarriage allowed between the two orders, must have exercised a powerful influence: the families on both sides became more closely related; the patrician who, born of a plebeian mother, was in the senate, stood on an equal footing with the plebeians.